Women do not shave for hygiene purposes, otherwise men would need to do the same. Shaving the underarms and legs started as a fashion and as an advertising technique to make more money. Women should rebel against societal demands to shave and show the world that hairy is hip!!

There is a common assumption made by many individuals that live in the modern era that traditions, fashions, and habits that have existed for thousands of years are likewise modern inventions.

When it comes to the grooming of pubic hair both genders have been practicing the habit in some way in some cultures since the beginning of recorded history. An examination of classical art, wall paintings, painted sculpture, and so forth will show relatively well groomed, or non-existient pubic hair. Waxing and tweezing has been around for thousands of years. Originally, they were signs of wealth and privilege as often times those attending to you would be servants or slaves, and to remove hair over large body regions by tweezing would be a quite tedious job. Examinations of Roman written biographies will show details of this, like the meticulous attention that Julius Caesar paid to both his hair and facial pubic hair.

These habits had nothing to do with advertising, or increased profits, meaning their origins are neither commercial related nor greed related. It's just that the grooming habits of ancient societies seldom make it into our already inadequate history classes in North American high schools.

However, in the 5th century BCE a Greek sculptor created a sculpture of Aphrodite in the nude, and decided rather than risk offending the goddess with an inaccurate depiction of her genitals, to just leave that area of her body undefined. This became the standard for classical sculpture, which means that more than 2500 years ago a standard of beauty was established that included the female form being bare of pubic hair. The reasoning behind it was modesty, so again not commercialism.

Secondly, there is nothing in society that truly demands that women shave. Before you blame pressures from men, realize that we're men and we're not actually that picky. If all of the blonds in the world disappeared, and there were no more blonds, in less than a decade the male standard of beauty would have nothing to do with blonds. Men are interested in what is available. In magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, you can honestly find weight gain formulas being advertised to young women to make them more boxum so they can be more fetching for their men.

Before you suggest that men are interested in completely hairless women from the neck down, I again suggest examining the pornography of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. In those decades, production companies and direction was almost exclusively handled by men. As the industry became more legitimate, and women became more involved, the industry also became more defined by more hairless women.

To be honest, the fashion industry and most magazines related to it are completely dominated by women. So, I will not accept societal pressure as a blame for this. It is the pressure of other women that have moved the behavior patterns of the younger generation towards habits that resemble what was once more common in antiquity than in the Victorian era.

We still groom the hair on the top of our heads. In my case it is more for comfort than fashion, but in many aspects for many people their hairstyle is defined by what is fashionable. Other hair on our body is often treated in the same fashion. And to be honest, sometimes a little groom isn't terrible for either gender. We are beasts of nature, and just as animal as the next mammal, but as we use tools and structures to alter our environment, there's no reason why we shouldn't use tools and structures to alter our bodies.

The truth is, life is about comfort. If you are comfortable with yourself you can be happy. It is when we attempt to cope with our insecurities, or hide our insecurities that we discover what lengths we are able to go to. Perhaps it has become common to manifest a lack of pubic hair, and suggestions and advocation for the removal of pubic hair in media, print or otherwise because the women who are responsible have their own insecurities which lead to their behaviors.

Truth be told, in life it should be about doing what makes you happy about yourself. If your happy with more hair, or happy with less hair, that should be what governs your behavior. To advocate that all members of society do one preference or another preference is simply attempting to force what your comfortable with upon others who aren't comfortable with, in other words it is unjustly attempting to enforce your insecurities on to society so you can feel more happy being yourself.

Just be happy being yourself, and let others be happy being themselves too.